How to Find the Perfect Course
When there are a lot of courses to search through, it can sometimes be a little overwhelming – leading to analysis paralysis! (No bueno!). There are enough decisions to make in a day, let’s make finding the perfect course a simple one.
Now, with the filter feature right in our Course Catalog, you can filter courses by:
- Course Topic
- Course Instructor
- Course Approval
You can filter by none, one, two, or all three of these filters! You decide.
That way, you can find the perfect blend of topic(s) and/or instructor(s) that you’re interested in with the continuing education approval(s) that you might need. Best yet, if you’re a dual practitioner (having licenses or certifications in multiple fields or jurisdictions), you can search for one course that can satisfy the requirements for multiple of your licenses or certifications. Pretty cool, eh?
In this NatNotes article, we will walk you through the process, step-by-step!
The Step-By-Step Instructions:
Step 1 – Go to the Course Catalog
You can browse the entire Course Catalog to view all of our courses.
The 3 Filter Options
At the top of the page, you’ll notice that there are 3 options for course filtering. You can filter by Course Topic, and/or Course Instructors and/or Course Approvals.
Step 2 – Option #1 – Filter by Course Topic
Click on the Course Topics bar.
This will open up a menu where you can scroll and select, or type and select, various course topics. You can select one or many course topics.
For example, if you select “Aromatherapy” and “Botanical Medicine,” the course catalog will filter to only show you courses that are either the topic “Aromatherapy” or “Botanical Medicine.”
Check the box for the topic(s) you are interested in!
To clear the course topics, you can uncheck each topicindividually.
To clear all of the course topics, simply click on the “X” in the upper right hand corner.
Step 2 – Option #2 – Filter by Course Instructor
Click on the Course Instructors bar.
This will open up a menu where you can scroll and select, or type and select, various course instructors. You can select one or many instructors.
For example, you can select “Jillian Stansbury” and “Eric Yarnell” and “Rhiannon Lewis.” The course catalog will filter to only show you courses that are taught by any one of these three instructors … AND… that are either the topic of “Aromatherapy” or “Botanical Medicine.” (Since we just applied the course topic filter up above.)
Check the box for the instructor(s) you are interested in!
With both the Course Topics and Course Instructors filters applied (“Aromatherapy” and “Botanical Medicine;” and “Jillian Stansbury,” “Eric Yarnell,” and “Rhiannon Lewis”), there are now 30 courses that match our search criteria.
Notice how there’s a green banner that says “In Progress” for the first course, Advanced Clinical Aromatherapy for Acute Respiratory Conditions. That means that you’re already registered for that course. While our system won’t actually let you purchase it again since you’re already registered, it can be easier on the eyes for finding the *next* perfect course to remove courses you’ve already signed up for.
Fun Fact: Remove Courses You’ve Signed Up For
To remove all of the courses you’ve signed up for, all you need to do is click the “Hide My Courses” check box just to the bottom right of the course filter options. Now, you’ll only see courses that meet your criteria AND that you haven’t registered for or completed already. Notice it changed the results from 30 courses to 24 courses.
Click “Hide My Courses”
Step 2 – Option #3 – Filter by Course Approval
Now let’s say you need CEs / CEUs / PDAs / or whatever other fancy acronym your particular licensing board or certification uses for continuing education, you can browse courses based on specific CE Approval.
Let’s continue with our previous example – we want a course in “Aromatherapy” OR “Botanical Medicine” AND that has “Jillian Stansbury” OR “Eric Yarnell” OR “Rhiannon Lewis” as an instructor. Now, we can make sure the course will count for our specific licensing board. For this example, let’s use the “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine.”
Click on the Course Approvals bar.
This will open up a menu where you can scroll and select, or type and select, various licensing boards or organizations. They’re listed by profession, then alphabetically.
Most organizations are available to search by full name and by acronym. i.e. “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine” or “OBNM“.
Type to filter your result.
When you check off a licensing board or organization, the course catalog will automatically filter your results based on approval from that board. If a board has multiple categories of CE, all of the options will appear and, if you want, you can check off which specific category(ies) you are looking for. Please always read each individual course page for specific course approval details and exact hours for each category.
Once checked, the CE categories for the “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine” display.
You can select none, one, or many categories for the same board.
Fun Fact: Find Courses for a Dual License
Let’s say you are dual licensed. Perhaps as a naturopathic doctor in two different states or provinces – or perhaps you’re a licensed naturopathic doctor in Oregon by the “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine” and you are also a board certified acupuncturist by the “National Certification Commission for Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine.” You can find one single course to satisfy multiple licenses or certifications.
We are just going to repeat our steps from the Course Approvals section above.
We’ve already added the “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine“, so now we just need to add the filter of “National Certification Commission for Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine.”
Open the Course Approvals menu again.
Now, find and check “NCCAOM.”
Once checked, the course catalog now *only* displays courses that have approval for *both* the “Oregon Board of Naturopathic Medicine” AND the “National Certification Commission for Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine” AND that are related to “Aromatherapy” OR “Botanical Medicine” AND that have “Jillian Stansbury” OR “Eric Yarnell” OR “Rhiannon Lewis” as an instructor. A total of 17 courses. How about them apples?
Fun Fact: Clear ALL 3 Filters in 1 Click
Let’s say you want to clear all of the filters (Course Topics, Course Instructors, and Course Approvals) in one swoop so you can start with a fresh canvas. No problemo.
Click on the “Refresh” icon to clear all filters.
Step 3 – Scroll through the Results to Find Yours
Yep, that’s the one.
Voila! You did it!